A hard day in the office, rushing, racing, a million urgent things to do – not one of which will be recalled or relevant tomorrow. Staff disputes, executive calamities, media fires to put out. Round and round on the hamster wheel we race, as though our lives lack an indelible purpose.

Driving home. Head spinning from the stress, frustrated, tired. Another day, another dollar, so they say.... Slowly I pull into the drive, and let the diesel engine idle to cool the whining turbo that’s fought its way through city traffic. Windows up, engine off. The howling begins to pour through the opened door as I step out of my iron horse, onto the soft, green grass of the front yard. Howls of love, howls of excitement, howls that say “Welcome home! We’ve missed you!”

Watchful eyes at the side gate, bodies eagerly anticipating a single touch – a pat, a hug, anything to make contact with the one their full attention is fixated upon. A detour to the front door and in through the house sends them racing around the side of the property, bounding up the stairs of the back veranda to meet me at the back sliding door.

It’s the best part of my day, when I get to open that door, and have them smother me in warm, wet kisses and hugs. Stress and headaches, frustrations and tiredness are soon replaced with licks and hugs, fur and paw prints, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Pulling at my hands and arms with their mouths, tugging on my fingers and the cuffs of my shirt with their teeth, “Please come down to play?!” their eager souls cry out. Who could deny such pure and selfless desire? To love and to be loved is all that they crave, and here in this home they have it in full.

On the grass we wrestle and play and chase one another. A scrap of food, a stick or a chewed up toy is the prize to be won – at least on the surface anyway. The true reward is the bonding, the affection, the joy and jubilation of the excited bodies darting around the yard with howls and chortles, jumps and body slams, hugs and licks.

When the excitement is over and it’s time to rest, their warm eyes stare into my soul, communicating messages that can’t be spoken. It’s something incorruptible, something indelible, something ancient that has preceded us, yet something that we know full well. It’s a bond of partnership, a promise to always love and protect; to provide and share. A unique and enduring companionship that is as old as the hills in this land; as old as its first people.

Legend since the Dreaming, the Dingo’s place has not changed in the wild hearts of the men and women who love them. Respected and admired, loved and appreciated, the bond and the spiritual exchange of unexplainable values is lifelong in its entirety, and moment by moment in its expression.

Love is, with the Dingo, at the centre of all things. Love of freedom, love of life, love of family and love of duty and commitment. Loyal and faithful to their kin, to the death they prove their love. Ephemeral only is their beating heart, that one day will return to the earth from which it was made. But their love, their love is an icon in this rugged and tough land that proves to endure through all places, in all things, no matter the persecution or the ultimate price.

Through drought and fire, flood and rain, snow and ice they can be found. And wherever they are in this Land Down Under, the story is the same – to love them is to know them, and to know them is to love them.

Last month I was in the Kimberley, staying at Mt. Hart station. In the middle of a moonlit, star bright night, the dingoes set up a chorus somewhere near the station. Went for about half an hour and was one of the most beautiful things I have ever heard. Such a privilege. A few days earlier I had been staying at the Broome Bird Observatory and, as I sat in a bird hide waiting to photograph birds, a huge feral cat came sauntering down to the waterhole. A dingo presence would have avoided the carnage of this introduced menace. Kath